Separation
by kissingonconey
Summary: "He's seen the two of them, sharing coffee quietly or even taking a walk back down by the dock. She bought him a new watch once, and Charming had been surprised to see the man blink fast, and then grab the girl's hand tenderly." Whale/Ruby


_Just a little scene inspired by my thought last night about how it would work when everyone goes back to FTL-will Whale have to return to his world too?_

* * *

He finds Ruby outside the diner, kicking absently at a pile of snow. It's getting onto her boot, and probably soaking through, but she doesn't seem to mind. He watches just for a moment, the girl he has seen as a close confidant and perhaps even sister. He has never felt that able to pull away her layers, even if he has been a part of her life: her loneliness, her fear at succumbing to the wolf inside, her strange second life as a promiscuous waitress.

"Hey, Charming," she says, and he laughs. He forgot about her superior hearing. "Thought you'd send Snow out to find me."

He could've done that. But sometimes he thinks that he understands Ruby better than his wife, regardless of his worries about not totally seeing her. Snow, despite her hardships, sees things as easy, moral, and beautiful. But he is the one who understands Ruby's displacement, how she feels (she thinks she is taking advantage of everyone by dressing like and sounding like and being Red Riding Hood instead of the Wolf)—after all, he's the one who took a dead man's place to become king.

"We want you at the council meeting, Ruby," he says instead. "Your vote counts."

"Everyone wants to go home," she replies. "Now that we found a way, no one is going to vote against it."

"That's not true. Snow is still torn."

"Snow will be a queen and follow her people's desires." Her voice isn't bitter, but resigned, as if realizing that Snow White will be able to gracefully accept the decision.

"And you?" Charming asks, moving forward to place a hand on her arm.

"I—I doubt I'm better off either way. I'm a werewolf here and there. But…" She trails off, but her eyes gaze in the direction of the hospital, and he gets it.

"Whale."

He's seen the two of them, sharing coffee quietly or even taking a walk back down by the dock. She bought him a new watch once, and Charming had been surprised to see the man blink fast, and then grab the girl's hand tenderly.

Charming had been suspicious. No one can forget how Whale used to leer at Ruby's body as she waited tables, or his comments about wanting to spend a little unholy time with the nuns. But he soon realizes that the Whale who sits next to Ruby and tells her about his experiments and a human's organs and what another world—Whale's first world—is like is not that man. He'll always be lewd and a little boisterous, but the deep agony that he holds inside bubbles to the surface and dissipates when Ruby is with him.

Ruby tightens her lips and then whirls around, eyes hard but brimming with tears. "Can he even come back with us? Or would we leave him here? Or would we send him back to his world, where he has nothing left? No family, no work, no—no wife?"

"Ruby."

"I mean," and now she's just talking, her eyes darting from him to the council and back to him, "could we even take him with us? I wonder—I wonder if this is the price of magic, that Gold always talks about."

"We could always try."

"But what if the magic didn't want him there? What if he just got pushed away and he disappeared or even died, I mean, who really knows with magic, David? It's so unpredictable."

Charming squeezes her arm. "I think that's his choice to make."

Ruby nods briskly, but he see her biting at her lip.

"Hey," he says, "do you—"

"I don't love him," she whispers, and he wonders how she knew he was going to ask that—maybe it's a question she's been asking herself lately. "I mean, I saved him for killing himself and I would've done that for anyone. It's the right thing to do. It wasn't an act of love. And our friendship, that isn't love either. But David, he's like me, and when we're together I think we forget what's wrong with us."

"There's nothing wrong with you," Charming says fiercely.

She smiles sadly, and then hugs him. "You're so good, David. You wouldn't know."

He wonders briefly what it is that Whale can understand in her that he, David, can't. Because he loves her so, this slip of a girl in his arms, and he thinks that should be enough. But it isn't; somehow, she doesn't seem to feel whole with anyone but Whale. Which isn't love, according to her.

He's sure that Whale would say the same thing, being a man of science: true love doesn't exist. After all, David read that once in a science book, that love is all pheromones, and connections and chemicals in the brain. But Charming has kissed a woman from an unending sleep, been able to wake her up with just his love. Charming knows that true love is real.

And this sounds like love to him, this fitting together, this understanding.

He stares down at the little snow pile that Ruby has smashed with her foot.

"We won't leave him, Ruby," Charming says finally.

She nods, still huddled against his chest, like a child.


End file.
